Category Physics

The airplane in which Flagship researchers performed experiment in microgravity. Operated by Novespace, the plane makes special maneuvers to create zero gravity conditions inside the plane. Credit: Graphene Flagship

In a successful collaboration between the Graphene Flagship and the ESA, experiments testing graphene for two different space-related applications have shown extremely promising results. Based on these results, the Flagship are continuing to develop graphene devices for use in space. “Graphene as we know has a lot of opportunities. One of them, recognised early on, is space applications, and this is the first time that graphene has been tested in space-like applications, worldwide,” said Prof...

Artist’s impression of the architecture of a silicon CMOS chip for a spin-based quantum computer; above is mostly standard CMOS components, and below the quantum bits in operation. (Illustration: Tony Melov)

A reimagining of today’s computer chips by Australian and Dutch engineers shows how a quantum computer can be manufactured – using mostly standard silicon technology. Research teams all over the world are exploring different ways to design a working computing chip that can integrate quantum interactions. Now, UNSW engineers believe they have cracked the problem, reimagining the silicon microprocessors we know to create a complete design for a quantum computer chip that can be manufactured using mostly standard industry processes and components.

The new chip design, published in the jou...

Towers of up to 500 chiral cubic structures rotated around their axis under load. Achiral structures do not exhibit this behavior. Credit: T. Frenzel/KIT

Using 3D printers for the microrange, researchers of KIT have succeeded in creating a metamaterial from cubic building blocks that responds to compression forces by a rotation. Usually, this can only be achieved by transmission using a crankshaft, for instance. The sophisticated design of bars and ring structures and the underlying mathematics are now presented in the latest issue of Science.

“If a force is exerted from above onto a material, the latter deforms in various ways. It may be bulged, compressed, or bent,” says Martin Wegener, Professor of the Institute of Applied Physics and Director of the Institute of Nanotechnology of KIT...

The microscopic ribbons lie criss-crossed on the gold substrate. Credit: EMPA

Transistors based on carbon nanostructures: what sounds like a futuristic dream could be reality in just a few years’ time. Scientists have now produced nanotransistors from graphene ribbons that are only a few atoms wide. Graphene ribbons have special electrical properties that make them promising candidates for the nanoelectronics of the future: While graphene is a conductive material, it can become a semiconductor in the form of nanoribbons. This means that it has a sufficiently large energy or band gap in which no electron states can exist: it can be turned on and off – and thus may become a key component of nanotransistors.

The smallest details in the atomic structure of these graphene bands, however, have m...